Noah was lying on the ground exhausted after the fight. All hell had broken loose when he had stumbled and ended up on the ground. It hammered home the fact that a single, small mistake could cost him his life. Arcane essence combat mastery flooded his mind with a mistake list so long, it gave him a headache.

HP: 69.9/444.5(3% per min / 13.3 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.66 per sec

Noah was shocked to find his HP so low. He had been laying on the ground for almost 30 seconds now. That would put his HP at the end of the fight at around 20. How it had gotten so low, was a mystery to him.

Although the rats had been all over him, they hadn't actually managed to reach his head or neck and the thick padding on his jacket made it physically impossible for the monsters with their small mouths to inflict serious damage on his torso.

He did get a few wounds on his legs, but they were not the monster's main goal. Even with these wounds, there was nothing that could explain his health loss. He did sacrifice 120 Hp, but what about the other close to 300 missing health.

His heart still hadn't calmed down and was beating erratically, clearly out of rhythm. His heart was beating. His...heart...was beating.

' Oh. Ooooohhh! I lost control of my arcane essence flow again. That explains the health loss. And the weakness, and the blurred vision. Good thing I didn't collapse like last time, that would have been the death of me...literally'

Noah also realized he had tried to sacrifice more health to his nova skill than he had at the time. Without the skill or his arcane essence resisting, he would have killed himself. He wasn't willing to experiment to find out which of the two or maybe both had saved him, though.

Sitting up, Noah groaned and got to work on his circulation while looking at the room he was in. It was a circular room with four tunnels leading out - the one he came from, another one just next to it and two more tunnels on the wall to the left, a few meters apart from each other.

Sitting in the center he could see down all four paths, which were decently long, the shortest being at least 50 meters before making a turn. All in all, it was a good spot to rest and train.

Noah decided he wasn't leaving the room until he was sure about not losing control of his arcane essence flow. He also needed to figure out the Sacrificial nova skill and a way to feel his Hp levels.

So far he had kept moving, afraid of the rat patriarch, but now he was willing to risk staying in one place. By the time he stopped his heart again, his HP had regenerated and Noah got up.

He started going through the Arcane essence combat mastery report, trying to fix his mistakes. At the same time, he both focused on his circulation and let it run on autopilot in the background.

It was counterintuitive, but he felt it would help him improve. He tried locking it in place while at the same time not thinking about it.

It was different from what he did before but he felt it internalize nevertheless, and the circulation at some point just clicked for the lack of a better word.

With that taken care of Noah moved on to Sacrificial nova. Thinking for a second, he decided to just replicate what he did during the fight.

Sacrificing 120 HP, Noah felt the power build-up in the center of his chest and explode in a bright red sphere, that disappointingly extended a little over his head and just past his crotch.

Now that there weren't rats crawling over him, he could analyze what happened. The skill exploding was mainly due to the volatile nature of his arcane essence and not him doing it.

Executing the skill properly would add to its power and extend the pitiful range. He could even still manipulate it, while in his chest and further strengthen it.

With the nova fading, Noah felt his arcane essence while it regenerated. He would use the downtime from his skill training and missing health to get a feeling for his HP levels.

When his regeneration did its job he did the whole thing again, this time working together with his arcane essence and getting better results.

He kept doing that, again and again, improving with each new attempt and during the time his health regenerated he further increased his senses in relation to his resource pool and it's nature.

All the while, his body was automatically moving through the forms and lessons imprinted to him by Arcane essence combat mastery. He was focusing on moves that would help him in the current situation, fighting really small and agile enemies.

At some point when he felt quickly improving Sacrificial nova any further was impossible, he started using less health, managing to trigger the skill with only 20 HP but to a significantly reduced effect.

After that, he went from 120 all the way up to 300 HP sacrificed. Higher amounts of HP used burdened his body, 300 HP leaving him weakened for a few seconds.

The large amounts sacrificed allowed him to further his understanding of arcane essence, and now he could feel the state of his HP to a decent extent.

All in all, it had taken him probably several hours to get to this point. During that time Noah found out there were actually two spawning holes in the room he hadn't noticed.

Seven rats had spawned from the holes in his time here so far. The monsters' heads just popped out of the holes at random times, struggling to get out and squealing weakly. It looked like the spawning itself left them dazed immediately after. Noah had taken care of them easily, but the first rat had given him quite a scare.

At one point during the training, Noah had noticed a lone rat down one of the tunnels. When he saw the monster, he had pretended to run away, but when he lost sight of it, he had quickly returned and prepared to ambush it as it came out. He had been waiting just to the side of the tunnel's entrance and when the rat finally showed itself, after about 30 seconds, it had been mercilessly kicked to death.

Now with his training goals met Noah was debating remaining here and working on his other two skills or moving on. He had been staying in one place for quite some time and it was a sort of crossroads, although there hadn't been much traffic so far.

Just then he noticed movement in one of the tunnels, which turned out to be two rats coming towards him. He quickly got out of their view and thought about running away, but in the end, he stayed and prepared to ambush them just as he had done before. If after his training he couldn't handle two rats, that he ambushed nonetheless, that would be a problem.

This time he had to wait a lot less and what came out of the tunnel wasn't what Noah expected. The rats had been too far away for their levels to show and he had moved away before getting the chance to look at them more carefully. With the long tunnels, and without a point of reference, it was hard to tell how big things were.

So when a cat-sized rat came out of the tunnel, it was quite a shock to Noah. He kicked it with all he had nevertheless but didn't get the usual outcome. For one the monster was larger and heavier, and even though surprised by his presence, it managed to react, leaning to the side, so the hit couldn't deliver its full power. The rat ended up tumbling on the ground and skidding on its side, instead of the expected result of getting launched into the wall with crushing force.

That was bad, but there was a bigger problem demanding Noah's attention. Just inside the tunnel, there was another one and it was ready to pounce, familiar white light swirling around paws and teeth. He turned towards it and just fell chest first, exposing his neck and face to the monster.

Surprised or not, it took the chance, shifting its position and getting ready to go for the vital area, so generously presented to it. What it got was a 200 HP Sacrificial nova to the face. The rat was at such an angle to the skill origin point that it was both crushed in the ground and pushed away, its claws scratching the floor.

Noah used the momentum of his falling body to launch forward, going after the rat and kicking it into the tunnel's sidewall. The monster bounced back screeching but had no chance to recover. Noah was over it and knelt down, his knees squeezing from the sides, his ass landing on the rat's backside, pushing it down, his fists raining on its head.

The rat tried struggling out, but had suffered hit after hit and was clearly disoriented, offering a feeble resistance. Noah kept punching while keeping his eyes on the tunnel entrance waiting for the other one to show up. It did, just as a notification resounded in Noah's mind.

You have killed Dark Rat Scout LV.2

You have reached level 2

The other rat was glaring at Noah, who was kneeling on the ground with its dead brethren between his legs. Noah was also looking at the rat, but not all of his attention was on the monster. The moment he leveled up, his HP had started going down. The cost of Mana sacrifice health regen had gone up and was currently outpacing the regeneration.

The drain wasn't that big, and Noah had about 3 minutes before running out of HP, but he wasn't ready to risk it. In a fight, every single point mattered and he quickly allocated the 10 free points to the Arcane essence stat.

Name: Noah

Level 2

Arcane essence-40

Strenght-20

Dexterity-20

Endurance-20

Intellect-20

HP: 240.6/545.4(4% per min / 21.8 HP per min) Total HP regen 1.17 per sec

It was just in time too, the rat activating its skills and jumping at him.

Noah was still kneeling on the ground. When he saw the skill light, he had grabbed the dead rat's fur and had focused to the absolute maximum. Now with the other monster flying through the air towards his neck, he lifted his hands, using the dead rat's body as a shield to protect his face and throat, and braced for impact.

The hit that came felt like a truck, and almost went straight through his improvised defense. Noah's back bent backward almost making him topple over, but he managed to hold his ground in the end.

An additional weight could be felt in his hands, and he slammed them down, crushing the living rat between the floor and his dead brethren's corpse. Noah heard a pained squeal and could feel it reverberating through the dead body.

He looked down and saw a pair of hind legs sticking out of his fleshy shield that started kicking, and shredded the front of his jacket, almost rending his throat.

Noah quickly grabbed a leg in each hand and got up, the rat hanging down, squirming and clawing uselessly at the ground it couldn't reach. The monster tried to bend its body and bite at his hands, but before it could get to them Noah slammed it in the nearest wall and then the floor. He did that two more times before getting the notification.

You have killed Dark Rat Scout LV.2

Arcane essence combat mastery had surprisingly little to say this time and Noah got up and went back to the middle of the room to monitor the other tunnels. Something sneaking up on him right now would be less than ideal.

He started shadow boxing again, making use of the time it took for his HP to regenerate. There had been quite an improvement between his last two fights, and Noah was even more motivated to train now.

He felt his development was quite drastic, unnatural even, and he had his Arcane essence to thank for that. With all the arcane essence related traits and skills working together the results were multiplied many times over. Noah wasn't complaining, of course, quite the opposite in fact. He was stuck in a really shitty situation and he would take every advantage he could get his hands on.

He thought about his experiences so far. He had been here for at least ten hours, probably more. He had covered quite the distance, more than fifteen kilometers for sure at this point, from the nest he arrived at initially, and there wasn't a change in the environment whatsoever.

'Is that all there is to this layer, an endless maze of tunnels full of rats? Are there more nests with their own patriarchs?'

There were a lot of questions that started swirling in his head. He was thankful for it, but why hadn't he seen other level 2's until now. When he thought about it Noah had mostly spawn killed level 1 rats up to this point. Was that normal or were the rats hiding and not moving around, because of his explosive arrival here. Or maybe there was some other reason.

Anyway, the presence of a patriarch, matriarchs, chambermaids and now scouts, suggested some form of hierarchy and organization. Scouts usually moved in front of or reported to, a larger force.

Realizing that, Noah picked one of the tunnels he hadn't come from and not the one the scouts came from and moved on.

He thought about trying to make his other skills work but gave up when he couldn't make them activate with 5HP sacrificed, not confident enough to walk around with missing health. His regeneration had actually gotten slower after he leveled up, the exponential part still not kicking in.

He wondered if he would have been better off with a trait different than Mana sacrifice health regen, but came to the conclusion that wouldn't have been the case.

His offense would have been better, but without regeneration, Noah would have been far more reluctant to jump into battle. Also instead of hours to get Sacrificial nova to its current state, it would have taken him days. Also, he would have been far more conservative with the amounts sacrificed during fights.

Noah got to another T-shaped intersection, and when he made sure there was nothing dangerous coming for him in any of the tunnels, he sacrificed 50 HP. But there wasn't a nova exploding out of his chest this time. He was trying to figure out his sacrificial stat skills, and from his previous training had figured out bigger amounts sacrificed made it easier in the begging. Still, 50 HP was all he was willing to offer right now, or he would have gone for more.

Anyway, the first step was actually the same as his nova skill, just sacrificing the health. The second was more tricky and this time he couldn't just rely on his arcane essence's properties. Noah had to manipulate the energy in such a way, as to turn it into fuel, that would give his body stats.

Arcane essence was drastically different from ordinary health, but at this point, he had gotten increasingly familiar with it, and Arcane essence manipulation gave him far more control than the actual skill intended. Thanks to that he got very close to pulling it off on the first try but ultimately failed.

Getting so close, and the experience fresh in his mind he just gave up 50 more HP and tried again. There were specific instructions on how to get both strength and dexterity that were quite counterintuitive and Noah failed miserably again when he tried getting the latter stat.

Still, the experience gave him an idea and he risked another 50 HP, while the feeling was still fresh. This time instead of a specific stat he just tried to get stats. Any stats. All stats. What he got was a primordial soup of stats with four flavors, two within his grasp, and the other two beyond him.

The soup was all mashed together and he couldn't do the last step which was spreading them through his body but he could somewhat mess with the strength and dexterity part. He did exactly that getting a better feeling for them until the stat soup dissipated harmlessly. After the fact, Noah realized he had done something very stupid and was fortunate to not have exploded.

Now with 150 Hp missing Noah got back to training with Arcane essence combat mastery while feeling his regeneration and the general flow of essence in his body.

He had debated just going down one of the tunnels and regenerating his HP on the move, but it turned out he had made a better choice by staying at the intersection. With about 90 HP still missing, a swarm emerged down the same path he had eyed earlier.

It consisted of, by the looks of it three level 2's, and about a dozen level 1's. The bigger rats were the center of the swarm, one moving in the front, the other two behind him, and the small ones in a circle around them. Noah didn't like his chances against a group this big, especially without the element of surprise.

He sprinted down the tunnel the rats couldn't see, which coincidentally was the other tunnel he hadn't come from, so he wasn't backtracking.

Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough and when he got to the bend, which was sadly only one way, and looked behind him he saw the swarm coming after him and quickly catching up.

'Screw it, my ambush strategy has a perfect success rate so far. I am definitely not outrunning them, but with the element of surprise I might actually get through this'

Noah put his back on the wall and waited. Just now when he sacrificed HP for the sacrificial skills, he got the feeling that with more points in the Arcane essence stat and a bigger pool, he could sacrifice more health than before without getting negative side effects.

He heard the rats getting near, their claws scratching the ground and squealing to each other from time to time. He focused and braced himself, he had to do this perfectly.

Just as the swarm was about to round the corner, he jumped out, landing right in the middle of it and crouching down. The rats' first reaction was to scatter, but with their target just sitting there doing nothing they rushed him.

So far the largest amount of HP Noah had used for a Sacrificial nova was 300. Now he used 400 and pushed it to the maximum of his ability. The sphere of angry red energy exploded out, sending both big and small rats flying, most of them hitting a wall, some just shooting down the tunnel.

You have killed Dark Rat Lv.1

.

.

You have killed Dark Rat Lv.1

He hadn't counted the exact number of level 1 rats, nor did he count the number of messages, but Noah was sure he had gotten all of them. He had been crouching almost exactly between the rear level 2 rats when the nova exploded, and when the monsters bounced of the walls, they landed right in front of him. The third one was somewhere behind him.

Noah felt weakened, but it wasn't anything he couldn't manage. The two monsters in front of him were starting to recover from the shock, so he fought through the weakness and grabbed them by the base of the tails. The appendages were gross and scaly, and touching them caused a shiver to run down his spine. Noah felt himself on reflex almost let go but stopped himself.

Standing up with a squirming rat in each hand, he turned around and saw the last monster trying to get on its feet. Noah rushed forward and started slamming it with his improvised weapons.

All three started screeching and squealing, but he was relentless. Soon he got a kill message but wasn't completely sure which one of the three had died. It made sense that it was the one on the ground that died, and the fact that the two he was holding were still screeching, and it wasn't, confirmed it. At that point, Noah just started slamming the ones in his hands in the ground.

You have killed Dark Rat Scout LV.2

You have killed Dark Rat Warrior LV.2

You have killed Dark Rat Warrior LV.2

Noah dropped the dead rats on the ground, moved away from the carnage and sat down exhausted.